Right? So they did it first, still very strange to me.What school would send their teenaged male students out to protest in public, over an issue that only should involve adult women, and is nothing to do with them?As I said a different universe.

Bluesqueak wrote:

Daryl wrote:From here it appears that these teenaged boys were on an annual official school trip to counter protest against women protesting abortion laws?What sort of school sends a group of teenaged boys out to disrespect adult women in public? At times the US really seem to be in another universe.

Other way round. The date for the ProLife March was announced in July 2018. The date for the Women's March was announced in September 2018. It was the Women's March who picked the same date as the anti-abortion rally.

Daryl wrote:What school would send their teenaged male students out to protest in public, over an issue that only should involve adult women, and is nothing to do with them?

Part of the issue seems to be that a certain percentage of Professors/Teachers/Tutors etc see their job not as teaching children how to think for themselves, but as teaching children to think in accordance with the Teacher's preconceptions. Sadly, the imposition of an external mode of thinking can reach levels more commonly associated with indoctrination and/or brainwashing, usually with the highly unfortunate side-effect of reducing the ability of children to cope with anything that doesn't mesh with the resulting outlook.

We have seen this quite a bit recently. Rather than being able to consider the situation in question and how to cope with it or adapt in order to capitalize on it, we see people having meltdowns in public, their cognitive capabilities completely incapable of helping them traverse the situations that they find themselves enmeshed in.

This unfortunate trend in education can be made worse by the actions of parents who do their best to make their childrens lives as safe/easy as possible, thus preventing them from developing the problem-solving skills and mental resilience which aids in traversing the travails of life. This leads to children who, upon entering the workplace, are unable to do things like start work at the required time or restrain themselves from checking their twitter/e-mail/facebook feeds while they are meant to be doing things like filling shelves (and yes, I have seen this happen. The resulting chewing-out by the 5" female manager reduced the 6"2' teenager to a blubbering mess, although that may have been because she confiscated his phone and told him he could have it back at the end of his shift... less than two hours later).

I have heard several managers discuss how they are refusing to recruit anyone who has attended certain colleges due to this effect. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to be as bad on this side of the pond as we have yet to have our own Evergreen College moment.

Michael Everett wrote:teaching children to think in accordance with the Teacher's preconceptions.

Truth! [See Harry Turtledove's Worldwar series for that one]

They are taught unquestioning belief and blind obedience, at school and at home, and are unable to understand that some things are true whether you want them to be or not.

They are taught, not to look for truth, but to force their beliefs on the world. They are unable to cope with the effects, when those beliefs are not compatible with reality.———————————Facts do not depend on opinions. Unfortunately, for far too many people, opinions do not depend on facts, either.

Daryl wrote:Right? So they did it first, still very strange to me.What school would send their teenaged male students out to protest in public, over an issue that only should involve adult women, and is nothing to do with them?As I said a different universe.

That would be because you've bought into the idea that free speech can somehow be restricted by gender. Going along the slippery slope, we get free speech being restricted by an upper age limit, a lower age limit, education ... colour.

I'm not a Roman Catholic, but I do know why they think the way they do on abortion. Essentially, it's based on the idea that life begins with the zygote. A zygote doesn't have the same genetics as its mother, so those different genetics make it a separate being and so it should have legal protection as a separate being.

The pro-choice movement would argue that any zygote, embryo or foetus which can't survive outside the maternal life-support system isn't yet a separate being and doesn't deserve those legal protections. It's still part of the mother's body, and the mother has sole control over it.

We're not talking science, here. Nobody is disagreeing about science. It's a moral/ethical question about the point at which a fertilised egg grows into a being with legal protection.

And if we say that our ability to talk on moral/ethical questions are gender-based, we might as well give up and go home because 'free speech' just died.

From the point of view of the school, taking the kids to the protest would normally have the following advantages.

1. They learn that they live in a free country, where it is possible for citizens to peacefully protest against the law of the land.

2. They learn that it's okay in the US to have a view that's different from other people's.

3. [From the school's point of view] - the parents and teachers are unlikely to object to this particular protest, because Catholics generally *are* pro-life. It's much 'safer' than a Republican or Democratic rally.

Unfortunately, this particular year they learnt that the idea of 'peaceful protest' and it being okay to hold 'different views' appears to be dying. And it is, apparently, okay for a bunch of kids on a field trip to be told that they deserve to be punched, deserve to be killed, shouldn't have dared to be on the march at all because they have no right to speak on such matters, and that they deserve to have their school so concerned about their safety that they have to close it down.

And I still can't find out what they actually did wrong - apart from look at someone funny.

Bluesqueak wrote:Essentially, it's based on the idea that life begins with the zygote.

Except that's not true, as anybody who knows anything about biology can tell you. If the sperm cell, and the unfertilized egg, were not already alive, there would be nothing to argue about. Life began three and a half billion years ago, and every living thing today is connected back to that beginning through an unbroken chain of living things.

Many things happen at fertilization. 'Life beginning' is not one of them.

Unfortunately, everything the Catholic church teaches was made up before anybody knew anything about biology, or about physics, electromagnetics, cosmology, or any of the other facts we've discovered in the last 2,000 years.

Free speech comes with some responsibility not to say stupid, ignorant things. Such as that a fertilized egg has rights that are more important than an adult woman's.

Bluesqueak wrote:We're not talking science, here. Nobody is disagreeing about science. It's a moral/ethical question about the point at which a fertilised egg grows into a being with legal protection.

But that is a question that can only be answered through scientific knowledge and understanding. It certainly can't be answered by those who choose not to learn the facts, or seek to deny the facts.———————————Complex questions never have simple answers. Hell, most simple questions don't have simple answers.

There is a moral component to the abortion discussion that cannot be resolved by science.

Ultimately though, it comes down to a simple question: Does a human being that only exists in potentia have rights that override the rights of an actually existing human being? To me, the answer is clear; the well-being of the mother should always override the well-being of any unborn child.

The E wrote:There is a moral component to the abortion discussion that cannot be resolved by science.

What is so special about morality that it can't be analyzed scientifically? That is to say, using logic and reason? Any morality that can't be justified by logic and reason is unlikely to be a good one.

The Book Sez So is not logical, or reasonable.

The E wrote:To me, the answer is clear; the well-being of the mother should always override the well-being of any unborn child.

Even if the child almost fully developed, and the issue is life or death for the child, versus inconvenience for the mother?

You are oversimplifying the question, in the opposite direction.———————————Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!!

Imaginos1892 wrote:What is so special about morality that it can't be analyzed scientifically? That is to say, using logic and reason? Any morality that can't be justified by logic and reason is unlikely to be a good one.

Because morality ultimately comes down to how you're feeling about a given situation. It's informed by culture, upbringing, personal history and a bunch of other factors that make it an ultimately subjective issue; While that can certainly be quantified and interrogated using science, it cannot be settled through it. There is no objectively correct answer to this that can be found using the tools and mechanisms of scientific inquiry.

Even if the child almost fully developed, and the issue is life or death for the child, versus inconvenience for the mother?

You are oversimplifying the question, in the opposite direction.

Yes, I am. Because I trust people like you to recognize when someone omits a bunch of edge cases from a statement in order to make a point.

(The omitted part was "If you can save both, save both, but if there's a choice, save the mother. What a woman does with her body, including the decision whether or not to terminate a pregnancy, is her decision; Limits on such decisions can not be accepted by anyone committed to the ideal of personal liberty as a common good."*)

*This, by the way, is a statement designed to trap the stupid and unwary. I wonder who will fall for it first....

That would be because you've bought into the idea that free speech can somehow be restricted by gender.

Normally not, but until males can get pregnant they shouldn't push an opinion on abortion.As to age young people are entitled to an opinion, but should learn early that they may be called on it, and that it is more likely to be wrong because of inexperience than for an adult.As to the religious bit, religions can indoctrinate their members, but leave the rest of us alone.

The E wrote:There is a moral component to the abortion discussion that cannot be resolved by science.

What is so special about morality that it can't be analyzed scientifically? That is to say, using logic and reason? Any morality that can't be justified by logic and reason is unlikely to be a good one.

The Book Sez So is not logical, or reasonable.

While objective moral systems can be formulated (as in, the rules they contain are all based on objective criteria for evaluating whether an act is considered good or bad by that system) there is no objective means of evaluating whether any such system is itself good or bad because morality is a subjective value judgement.

Societies arrive at common moral standards through a process of majority agreement about what their shared values are and should be, not through logical discovery of any kind of objective moral 'truths'.